Comstock Law is a United States law that prohibits the mailing of indecent materials or of information about birth control or abortion. The law, passed in 1873, is named for Anthony Comstock, a controversial reformer who crusaded for its passage. Originally, the law allowed Comstock and those of his choosing to enforce the law. It gave them the power to both arrest violators and seize any material deemed to be indecent.
The legislators who enacted the Comstock Law probably intended that it be used to prosecute pornography distributors in criminal court. Instead, it was used to support a system of administrative censorship by postal officials, without requiring them to get court orders to confiscate (seize) “indecent” materials. For about 85 years, postal officials used the Comstock Law, sometimes very loosely, to censor mail. If post office inspectors decided a book, picture, or other item of mail was indecent, they seized all copies and refused to deliver them. Even anatomy books mailed to medical students were seized. The Comstock Law was also used to control information about family planning.
Since the mid-1900’s, the Supreme Court of the United States has narrowed the legal definition of pornography in the process of interpreting the First Amendment to the Constitution. The court also has placed constitutional limits on censorship. On the grounds of free speech, the court has declared laws banning information on family planning to be unconstitutional. The Comstock Law is still in force, but most experts think the Supreme Court would find the system of postal censorship unconstitutional if it were challenged. As a result, the U.S. Postal Service almost never uses the law to seize mail, and the Department of Justice rarely tries to enforce the act in criminal court. However, some experts believe the Comstock Law could be used in an attempt to control obscene material on the Internet. So far, the law has not been used for that purpose.
